to condole with
you, and to exhort you to continue your resistance, and since your king
is our enemy as well as yours, let us join in opposing him.

"We purpose to send an army to the frontier next summer to wait there
till you give us the signal for action. Know then that, if you will
desert him and join us, your ancient liberties shall be secured to you,
and you shall be free of all taxes and tributes, and shall live under
your own laws."[1]

The army promised was sent under the king's son, but seems to have
effected nothing.

During the period of religious disturbance at Cordova, when the
voluntary martyrdoms became so frequent, and just at the time of
Mohammed's accession, the Christians of Toledo, encouraged, we may
suppose, by their proximity to the free Christians, revolted in favour
of their coreligionists at Cordova. No wonder then that Mohammed
imagined that the outbreak of fanaticism in Cordova was but the signal
for a general mutiny of his Christian subjects. As we have already seen,
the king set out with an army against the Toledans, who appealed to
Ordono I. of Leon for help. Glad enough to get such an opportunity for
weakening the Arab government, Ordono sent a large auxiliary force, but
the Toledans and Leonnese were defeated with great slaughter by the
Sultan's troops.[2] Within twenty years, however, Toledo became
practically independent, except for the payment of tribute.[3]

[1] Apud Florez, "Espano Sagrada."

[2] Dozy, ii. 162.

[3] _Ibid_, p. 182.

From all this it will be clear that the Spanish part of the population,
whether Moslem or Christian, was opposed to the exclusiveness of the old
Arabs, and ready to make common cause against them. The unity of race
prevailed over the difference of creed, as it did in the case of the
English Roman Catholics in the war with Spain, and as it usually will
under such circumstances. The national party were fortunate enough to
find an able leader in the person of the celebrated rebel, Omar ibn
Hafsun, who came near to wresting the sovereignty of Spain from the
hands of the Umeyyades. Omar was descended from a Count Alfonso,[1] and
his family had been Christians till the apostasy of his grandfather
Djaffar. Omar, being a wild unmanageable youth, took up the lucrative
and honourable profession of bandit, his headquarters being at Bobastro
or Bishter, a stronghold somewhere between Archidona and Ronda, in the
sierra stretching from Granada to